My date last night was called due to server problems, and we have rescheduled for next week. I'm sorry that I can't report on snappy repartee and drunken frivolity. It'll just have to wait.

This weekend isn't going to be fun, at all. I'm off to visit my father in the hospital. That he's willing to be seen in a weakened state says all one needs to know about the situation.
On the work side of life, I live in an absurdist movie. I was asked yesterday, in the most off-hand way, to take "some photos" "for the web." The real request was for 70-80 portrait-style head shots, printed on glossy photo paper and framed. Maybe they'll go on the web, later.

I tried to explain that my little 3 mega-pixel, fixed-flash digital camera was not the optimal equipment with which to attempt portraits, and suggested that they'd look more like mug shots than head shots. I tip-toed around the issue of not being able to print on glossy photo paper. I suggested that maybe the PR office would be a better source, or, and here's a real fucking leap, maybe, just maybe, they should go to the office of biomedical Communications, where there is an actual portrait studio set up for doing physicians' head shots, and where there is a full-time photographer, and a lab.

I was told that it would be too expensive over there, because it comes out to be about ten dollars a shot. And reasonable at twice the price, I said. Yes, but we can't afford that. We need to do this as cheap as possible. And what is the project? For what reason are we shooting a team of 80 people? Why it's the newest revenue recovery team. It's part of our Quality Improvement effort.

I could cry. Or I could send the story to Dilbert. Scott Adams is going to have to start paying me for all the subject matter I give him.

Time to call the RLA and tell him to get the ice shaver ready for tonight.

So ClearChannel booted Howard Stern over having to pay a fine for his indecency. The indecency charges stemmed from a listener who was offended, and complained. Now there's a brouhaha about decency in the media.
Back when the RLA and I were living in Scorched Earth Hell, New Mexico (also known as Clovis), a bunch of righteous-minded folks got MTV banned from the cable, because they thought Madonna was indecent, and they didn't want their kids exposed to such things.

Well, for them, and for the listener who started this whole Howard Stern flap, let me suggest a little outrageous something: turn off the radio, or the tv. I'm not going to tie you down and force you to watch Deadwood, so why must you force your choice on me?

That's all this is, people: a frelling choice, you know? I mean, unless you were living under a rock for the past ten or fifteen years, you weren't tuning in to Howard for intellectual stimulation. The man has strippers on the radio, for dog's sake. Radio: by definition, a non-visual medium.

This whole thing reminds me of the scene in Casablanca, where Captain Renault is "shocked, shocked" to learn that there is gambling in Rick's, as he pockets his own winnings. What did you expect to find on Stern's show except sex, sex, and a little profanity? So don't bitch about it. Just turn it off.

That's what I do every time I see those smug bastards in the Bush administration on tv. I turn it off, and then I double check my calendar to make sure we still have a democratic election coming up so that I can turn them off for good.

Turn it off, or change the channel. If you don't want your kids to watch something, try watching them. But that is another rant entirely. A rant about accountability and taking responsibility. Wait. Maybe it's the same rant that I was heading towards regarding the asshats in Washington.

I believe Howard when he says this is just a vendetta by the Bush administration, anyway. After all, even if nobody remembers the fact, Michael Powell (FCC) is the son of Colin Powell (White House running dog lackey). And Howard, despite early enthusiasm for the war in Iraq, has lately come to the conclusion that (I'm shocked, shocked) the call to war was built on lies, more lies, bogus intelligence, and a need to go shoot things. Since he can, he does, talk about that and about where he thinks the blame for American deaths lies: squarely in the White House, and who ever is in charge there.

But enough about that. I have something much more important to talk about today. And I know that this is going to be big news for my Jewish readers: you can make a perfectly good pie crust for Passover using matzoh cake flour and a regular old Crisco pie crust recipe. I did just that on Saturday with RJ, who came by for a kitchen play date. We picked mulberries and gave the crust a try. It's a little too crumbly to roll out, you have to pat it into the pie plate, but it tastes like pie crust, and it looks like pie crust and it acts like a pie crust. For the top crust, we merely made a sort of strussel out of the left over bits, and cut in sugar, cinnamon, ginger and cardomom.

After 50 years of no pie during Passover, we have solved the problem. And it was good. Photos will follow.

Finally, thank you to the folks who made donations to my AIDS Walk fundraising. For the rest of you, it isn't too late to help. The walk is on Saturday, the 18th.

Take it as a given that I want to keep my job. So how do I solve this problem? I can't do my job at the level of quality that I want, because other people have a say in what I do and how I do it. My boss asks for my advice, then either disregards it entirely, or just screws it up randomly. My battles with the PR department have been documented on this site, and every time I think I'm getting out from under their control, they fuck me in the ear with no oil.
I have a new VP, who has promised to "go to the wall" for us if we have a valid idea about how to do our work, who will defend us to the end for our vision of best practices. On the two occasions that I've had to test that resolve, he's caved, with the comment that one has to pick one's battles. So the result is that I don't believe in him or trust him and he's only been here for less than six months.

If asked for my opinion, what do I do? Do I give my best and honest answer, and wait for it to be ignored or gotten wrong? Do I give something less than the best answer, knowing that when PR gets wind of my point of view, they'll demand the polar opposite be done? Do I just smile politely and explain to my boss, that, well, he's the boss and he'll have to make those decisions? That I just couldn't (or won't) say?

That looks like (and is) passive aggression at its best, and a practice that is held in high esteem in this institution. While it works for damn near every incompetent I've had to deal with here, I suspect that I won't be allowed to get away with it. After all, the rules are different for me. Just look at the example of my office and the way I had to bend the rules into an origami crane just to get the furniture configured the way I wanted it, whereas the rest of the team, and the other team all got to bully their ways into what they wanted with no discussion from above.

Working here is like working in a particularly nasty whore house. Nobody wants to marry you when you quit. After a certain number of years working here, nobody wants to hire you when you leave. You've been ruined for real work.

And I have passed that point long ago. By the same token, I have lasted so long here that I am firmly held in place by the golden handcuffs. Offer me a job at the same salary, with the same benefits, and with a marginally more competent group and I would jump like a flea off a dead rat.

When I talk to other employees, we are all in the same place: held together with anti-depressants, cigarettes and alcohol.

That's from Dilbert. It's also my motto.

I've been reduced to posting PDFs as content on my day job's web site, because... uh, I don't know why because.

Because nobody will part with actual content? Because people think that scanning some piece of crap that was printed off a dot matrix printer and posting it is a good idea?

I leave for a week of training on Sunday. I'll be tripping out to the left coast. It's not that I hate to fly so much, as the terror I feel about ceasing to be flying. But it's a long flight, and I have money for alcohol and a bag of knitting, so I should be OK. Just call me Madame Defarge.

Not that I have much of a choice.

I'm starting to live in the zen moment, not because I have evolved and meditated to that point, but because I am practicing avoidance with every breath. Spending one's time not thinking about stuff leaves one with very little except the moment.

I'm a brain wave away from catatonic. Numb. Crazy.

Sucks.

Up front, I'm telling you this is a rant about bad bathroom behavior. If you don't want to read about nastiness in public places, come back tomorrow.

Item 1

Random young(ish) bum, pissing into the bike lockers at the train station, in broad daylight. The bike lockers are right on the main street, too, not buried behind the station, somewhere in the parking lot. OK, you're a drunk, or a junkie, or maybe just mentally ill, so the public pissing thing is a gimme. But pissing in the bike locker? On the bike locker? That's just nasty. Because he's doing it on the front side, on the door side of the lockers. Which means that there's going to be some pretty foul bikes in there. Thanks a fucking lot, pal.

Item 2

There is a huge difference between "ladies" and "women". I don't care what the sign on the door says, if you need to see a poster on the inside of the stall door with this bit of doggerel :

"If you sprinkle,
when you tinkle,
Please be neat,
and wipe the seat."

then you are not, and will never be, a lady. You are probably not even a dame. You are a pig.

One of the unforseen side effects of the office move is that I no longer have a private bathroom. I share with all the females on this floor, and let me tell you, I have no desire to ever set foot in any of their houses. Ever. If the way they use/abuse the public latrines are any indication of how they live, then the basest untouchable in the farthest reaches of inhabitable space could give them some lessons in manners.

There seems to be no knowlege of indoor plumbing, or the concept of a flush toilet. Every single stall has a reeking toilet, with evidence of numerous uses without the benefit of a single flush. Every seat is wet. The floors are wet. The sink surrounds are wet. There is dirt and filth every where. The room itself reeks. This isn't a matter of poor housekeeping, this is a matter of disgusting habits and a total lack of concern for other people. A blinding disregard for their own health and cleanliness.

I have never, and I mean never, in my twelve years at this institution, seen a more revolting sight than the ladies' loo on this floor. That includes the public access bathrooms in the main lobby.

This is a professional office floor. There aren't junkies wandering in from rehab here. You couldn't tell that by strolling into the loo.

I could just throw up. Except nobody would even be able to tell.

Okiedokie. I'm done weeping and rending my clothing. Well, I'm not, but it doesn't make for such a good read. Having come out of the shock and awe sadness of the past weekend, I am beginning to notice things like appallingly bad manners, bad style sense and stupidity disguised as management. Those are three separate things, although I do tend to notice a little bit of overlap now and then.
Bad Manners

For the last time, people: If you are standing in an elevator, and a total stranger is heading towards you, making eye contact all the way, the polite thing, the nice thing, the courteous and right thing to do is to hold the fucking door, not press the close door button. Not stand there next to the door or the door open button and let the door shut. What, it'll break your arm to hold a door? You might get to the next floor a nanosecond later than otherwise? Who cares? Hold the fucking door. It won't kill you to be polite. I, on the other hand, may cause your head to spontaneously combust through the sheer force of my will if you let that door close on me one more time.

And this is for the woman in the white lab coat at the Metrorail this morning: Hey! The people on the inside get off or out, then the people on the outside (that would have been you) get in. You don't strong arm your way into an elevator first, preventing the occupants from exiting. In any culture, that's just bad manners.

Bad Style Sense

Hey, Fab Five, do me a favor and take a minute to talk about the importance of clean, shiny shoes. You've taught men how to shave and open a bottle of wine, how about shining their shoes? Guy in cheap aftershave and the Armani suit sitting next to me on the train? It was all working (well, except for the cheap scent) but the shoes were scuffed and shineless. The heels were probably worn down, too. I didn't look. Men, (and women) shine your shoes. 'Nuff said.

Stupidity Disguised

The office move is back on. I am assigned a single office, but with two full desks in it. Not that there's another person going to sit at it, but the director who caved in to the Toxic Manager doesn't want to pay to have the furniture moved. The reason I have two desks and one person is because when the director split the rooms and told us all to play nice, the Boy Wonder and I were going to work in the same office. But Boy Wonder decided to be Boy Diva and copped an attitude, and moved down the hall to another set of offices (away from the rest of the team) where he could have his own space. My manager let him do it. The director let him do it. O.K. He has a private office now, and so do I, so could we get the extra desk out of my space and let me arrange the furniture so that I am not sitting in either the doorway or with my back to the door?

And the answer is: "No." I said, "well, that doesn't seem too equitable (grown-up, corporate speak for "That's not fair!") for everyone else to get what they want, when they want it, despite the repercussions to other team members, but I can't have a desk moved out." Too bad. The director refused the request.

So I did the only thing I could. I went to the new office and proceeded to draw a blueprint of how I want the furniture laid out and then told all the other workers in the three groups that all extra pieces of furniture are available to the first taker, but they have to move it themselves.

As all of us corporate drones know, it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.

And so ends another episode of WWRanting.

Bite me.

My dead friend Gary used to call it arbitrary use of inconsequential authority. I call it working with assholes.

At nine this morning, the PR office approved my new site design. I made a couple of their arbitrary changes, knowing full well that once they saw them in action, they'd hate them. I sent the design off to be made real.
At two this afternoon, the PR office called to say they'd changed their minds about the morning approval and wanted everything different.

My boss called the PR boss, who wouldn't take his call, and left for the day without calling him back. Her flunky couldn't say what was wrong or unacceptable with the design except that I'd done it.

Later in the day I received another call, from someone much higher up the food chain. Based on a misunderstanding of what they were looking at, I was told to remove all the links from our site to the on-line baby photos. The argument was made that we have a hard enough time keeping our babies safe from baby-napping without putting their little pictures on the web.

Yep. Potential baby-nappers shop for babies on-line, I guess.

To steal one of my favorite Dilbert lines: Rats cry when they hear about my job.

I'm off to make myself a slushee. I have a little kid-type ice shaver, and I'm going to make one in my favorite flavor: martini.

Chin chin, sweeties.

Sixteen stories below my office window is the elevated rail system known as MetroRail. There is a station there. There is a train in the station. Below the train is a body. Whether she jumped or was, as speculated by the guards, "sucked under" the train is anybody's guess.

Train service has been halted. The news helicopters circled for half an hour or so, making a racket and hoping for a glimpse of body, of blood, for the early news.

The train doors are open. The guards and police and EMTs are wandering up and down the platform. The fire rescue vehicle is long gone. The rubber neckers are not.

Because my window overlooks this scene, the guys from the offices across the hall have been coming in all afternoon, offering opinions, watching for any movement or body bags.

Vultures against the glass, alas.

I forgot my bite plate last night and woke up with a clenched jaw and a blinding headache, halfway to a migraine.

To make things more interesting, I had to go to the pharmacy when I got to work. They've given me a personal representative, so the entering of refills is painless, and in return I've decided to try and pick up my scrips before I go to my office. It's a compromise on both our parts.

But the service quality was its usual abysmal self. The snotty clerk behind the glass refused to make eye contact with me at any point in our transaction. This included handing forms back and forth, asking for a pen, turning in new prescriptions and taking the drugs that were ready. I was there for at least ten minutes. Not once, not even for a nanosecond, did the bitch make eye contact. She spoke at me, or in my general direction, but she never looked at me.

This sort of thing just drives me wild. I'm a freaking customer. Take my money, look me in the eye and say Thank you.

And that goes for customers, too. Put the fucking cell phone down for a minute, look at the clerk and make your request. Do not point or wave vaguely at something and expect the clerk to know what you want or mean. Do not keep yapping about your inane and inconsequential crap to the invisible person at the other end of the line. Put the phone down. Be polite. It won't kill you to be polite to the worker bees of the world.

Can you break your teeth from grinding them too hard?

Once upon a time, a consultant came to this hospital to analyze the pharmacy and make recommendations about how to improve service. He left saying that the only thing that could help would be a small thermo-nuclear device and a fresh start.

That didn't happen. Too damn bad.

I had another run in yesterday with the short little man who is a day-time manager. I shall refer to him hereafter as the Insufferable Mr. Pimple. Did I mention he was short? There's a latent element of Napoleonic complex, I think, as well as the classic "arbitrary use of petty power". Of course, maybe he suffers from Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and must be accorded special treatment under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Or maybe he's just an odious little prick. You decide.

For reasons that are completely specious, the pharmacy has decided to allow employees to drop off and pick up prescriptions during highly constrained hours. Like, from 5AM to 11AM, and 8PM to midnight. I work on the other side of campus and get to the pharmacy building only on my lunch hour.

The clerks take my 'scripts with no problem, or they did, until the Insufferable Mr. Pimple took over. Then we began a dance. The clerk would point to the sign, and say, OK, this once. I would look at the sign and explain that by changing the hours, the pharmacy administration had arbitrarily and without negotiation, changed my employee benefits. I refuse to accept this, therefore, I will continue to bring in my prescriptions at my convenience.

The Insufferable Mr. Pimple doesn't like this attitude. The Insufferable Mr. Pimple doesn't like me. I know that this is a personal thing because the Insufferable Mr. Pimple hands prescriptions to other employees right in front of me, without so much as a nod to the sign stating the new hours. But for me, the Insufferable Mr. Pimple goes so far as to tap the sign in the window and yell at me. TAP, TAP, TAP!!! You CANNOT pick up your medicine. We Must Follow The Rules!!! And then he says hello to Mrs. Rodriguez from Finance, and hands her her meds.

I say: if We Must All Follow The Rules, why are you giving Mrs. Rodriguez from Finance her meds and no grief? And the employee behind her? And the two in front of me? But not me?

The Insufferable Mr. Pimple lost it at that point and told me that he wouldn't fill my prescription at all today. If I didn't like that, said the Insufferable Mr. Pimple, I could just go talk to his supervisor.

Which, needless to say, I did. I pointed out to the supervisor that the Insufferable Mr. Pimple is Hispanic, as were the employees he was happy to help, whereas I, well let's just say that I have a last name that would have had me wearing a yellow star in Nazi Germany, right up to the point I got off the train at Auschwitz.

The supervisor was shocked, SHOCKED! that I would imply such a thing. I said, "Uh-huh, yeah, sure, right, whatever. How come I'm the only person who gets a lecture and a TAP TAP TAP, then?"

The supervisor couldn't rightly say. But he could order the Insufferable Mr. Pimple to issue my meds, and he did.

Except, of course, he got them wrong, and only filled them for one month instead of three, thus ensuring that he and I get to do our dance again, and again, and again.

My parents drank. After work, before dinner, my parents would have a cocktail. When we dined out, they would have a cocktail. Maybe two, if things were really swinging.

I drink. After work, I have a glass of wine or two. I may have a martini or two instead. When I dine out, I'll have a cocktail, or two.

Growing up in the late 50s through the 60s, drinking was a sign of adulthood. A sophisticated adulthood. The Rat Pack, James Bond, Holly Golightly: they all drank.

I went away to college and learned how to hold my liquor. Much to my relief, I discovered that I am a jolly drunk. I do not get loud. I do not get sloppy. I do not cry, or fight, or pass out. I tell stories and jokes, and can keep them straight. I may have to speak more slowly than is usual for me, but I do not go out and get knee-crawling, commode-hugging, sloppy, shit-faced drunk. I am a respectable drinker, and I stop long before I have too much.

Drinking is now a sin, like smoking. But that's another topic for another day. It's drink I wish to address. I love alcohol. I love the taste of a single malt scotch. I enjoy the rituals of drink mixing. I love the olive at the bottom of the glass, after it has absorbed as much vodka as it can.

But I am slowly being forced to see that I am an exception among my friends, in that I can say no. I can choose not to drink, or not to drink another. I am dragging my mental heels, but I have to admit that a number of my friends are alcoholics. They drink because they must, not because they can.

I no longer want to be their enabler. I don't enjoy their company when they drink. I don't want to watch my one neighbor become disgustingly drunk after a single martini: channeling the snake gods and terrifying my other guests. I don't want to lie and tell her that I forgive her drunken, savage calls to me when she's had too many. I don't want to have those conversations with her husband, where he denies his own alcoholism. I don't want to hear about still a third neighbor, who is dying of cirrhosis of the liver, and had to be Baker acted just to dry him out enough to be put in a nursing home to die.

I don't want to go out with my friend and watch him pass out in his food, and beg to be let go to wait for the rest of us in the car. I don't want to be part of it when he embarrasses his wife or abuses the waitstaff.

I don't want to carry my other friend into my house to pour black coffee down his throat and wait for him to sober up enough to drive the two miles to his home.

What is wrong with us as a nation, that we cannot do anything without doing it to excess?

We eat to obesity, we drink to unconsciousness, we smoke to death, we drive too fast, we spend too much money and save too little. On the other side of that same coin, we refuse to allow others to make their own choices regarding birth control, or marriage partners. We terrorize people who smoke, wear fur, or eat meat. We insult, abuse, and attempt to discredit people whose political views are different from ours.

We are become a nation of intolerant extremists, and that terrifies me. Enough that I think I need to go home and have a drink.

I wrote this entry once today, just at the time that Blogger went down. It was, as so many of my posts are, well written, and heart-tugging. It moved effortlessly from pathos to wit and back to scathing sarcasm.

Too bad it went the way of the dodo, into pixel oblivion. Or o-BLIV-ion, as Riff-Raff would say.

So here's the thing. Tonight I will be in a safe place, far away from any windows when the midnight shooting-guns-into-the-air festivities begin in Miami. We seem to have the third world aloha* down. I will be indoors, my pets will be indoors, and the windows will be covered. The laws of physics still apply, friends, even if you are drunk. Goes up: comes down.

The only resolution I will make this year is to help regime change begin at home, in America, where I hope and pray with my whole Yellow-Dog Democrat soul that anyone other than Bush gets elected this fall. Really elected, as opposed to selected, if you know what I mean. And if you don't, then you deserve what you got.

I will drink myself silly tonight and toast friends missing, absent or dead. I will revel in maudlin emotions. I will not let anyone other than my husband see or experience that, however. And I'm not going to detail it here, tomorrow.

I'll end this by paraphrasing another pop-culture hero of mine, Ford Fairlane (aka Andrew Dice Clay) and say: 2003? I fucked it.

* the third world aloha: shooting guns into the air as an expression of a) satisfaction b) dissatisfaction c) violent disagreement d) violent agreement or e) any and/or all of the above.

I guess that there are things more horrifying than watching a woman pluck her eyebrows down to fine lines during a morning public transit ride. Special thanks to the skank sitting next to me, who was using those tweezers that have handles like scissors, and who was quite ferocious in their application.

1. Pajamas as day wear

2. Milk containers as urinals (thanks to LaDiDa for the heads up on this one)

3. Tongue splitting as a fashion statement (Note: a google search for tongue "slitting" finds you all kinds of information on medieval torture. Tongue "splitting" which, as far as I can tell, is the exact same thing, takes you to news and body modification sites.... semantics)

4. Cosmetic foot surgery

On that last topic, I really must say something. My great-uncle was a cobbler: a man who made shoes. For three generations, my family made and/or sold clothing. Here's the sum of that collective clothing knowledge (ahem, clears throat for this pronouncement)

MAKE THE SHOE FIT THE FOOT, NOT THE FOOT FIT THE SHOE.

This is really a no-brainer, folks. If you have a big ole fat foot, buy big ole wide shoes. You don't need surgery to fit your size 9s into a size 7, just buy bigger fucking shoes. Shoe size is not a big deal. In fact, unless you are swapping them with your friends, nobody needs to know what size you wear. What is the big freaking deal?

Hey! I wear a size 9 shoe. Or an 8 1/2. Depends on the manufacturer and the cut. But you know what? Wearing a size 9 doesn't stop me from buying really pointy-toed shoes. So what if they look like something from the Florentine Renaissance? They are pointy shoes, you don't really think I'm cramming my toes all the way to the ends in them do you? No. My feet end somewhere around two inches in back of the point.

Here's a tip from someone who knows how to fit shoes. Put the shoe on. Stand up in it and put your weight on that foot. Then take your thumb and put it on the widest part of the front of the shoe. Press against your foot through the shoe. The widest part of your foot, the ball below the big toe, should be aligned with your thumb and the wide part of the shoe. If it isn't, then the shoe doesn't fit. If the wide part of your foot is forward of the wide part of the shoe, get a bigger size. It's that simple.

If you can't put your thumb between the end of your toe, and the end of the shoe (from the outside, of course, by pressing down gently on the toe of the shoe), then you need a larger size. Again, it is just that simple.

But carving off toes, in order to get a better fit? I'm sorry, but that is just fucking insane, and any doctor who would perform that surgery is immoral.

"The United States Coast Guard has a rule of thumb its members call the "rule of gross tonnage." It basically states that the bigger boat gets the right-of-way."

Yep. The bigger the boat, the more right of way. Maybe that's why people in SUVs drive like they own the road. Maybe they all drive citing the Rule of Gross Tonnage. It's my theory, anyway.

Today, I was forced to drive to work, something that I just dread. But it was a magnificent morning, the air was cool, traffic wasn't too obnoxious, and the sun was shining in spangles through the trees, as I took the back roads to the hospital.

I was cut off in the middle of a traffic circle by some a-hole in a Lincoln Navigator, who felt that he could merge into my lane despite the fact that I, in my little VW, already occupied that space.

Maybe he couldn't see me way down there, so close to the ground, or maybe he was driving according to the Rule of Gross Tonnage. But the fact that he was in a Lincoln SUV gave rise to this new take on the old gross tonnage law: in an auto, gross tonnage refers to the amount of money you spent on the thing you are driving. The more you spent, the more right of way you have. That would explain a lot about the kind of cars that cut me off in traffic, merge into my lane even when there is no room to do so, why someone will think it's ok to whip in to a parking space I'm clearly waiting for (complete with indicator light blinking) and like that. I drive a cheap car, there for I have less right of way.

And let me rant a little about the fact that Lincoln makes an SUV. (Aside: doesn't everyone?) What ever happened to playing to your strengths? Lincolns have been the gold standard for American luxury autos since they were being built on carriage frames. So why, why, why, would you try to make that leap to station wagon on steroids? Why not just continue with what made you famous? And another thing: why would anyone on this planet need an SUV with a turbo engine, manufactured by Porsche? If you wanted a Porsche, why would you want anything other than its flagship car, the 911? And why does Porsche manufacture any of its vehicles with an automatic transmission? If you are driving what I consider to be one of the finest sports cars in the world, why would you have an automatic? Must I remind you that the stick is to driving what bareback is to horses? Ultimate oneness with the beast.

Well, anyway... The Rule of Gross Tonnage. The more gross tonnage, the more right of way, or the modern version, the more you gross, the more right of way you have.

There was a little accident on the train today. Someone in a wheelchair fell on the tracks, thereby bringing mass transit to a mass stand still. Before you ask, no report yet on the guy who fell.

I was on the first train behind the accident, and so had first crack at the bus brought in to take us commuters on north. I got in the line, and watched in amazement as people streamed in from both sides, so that the woman in the purple leather jacket who started out directly in front of me, drifted further and further away, even though neither of us moved. While we had been in proximity, she commented to me about the man who pushed in front of her. The guy who pushed between us as she spoke was in a striped shirt and a beard. I last saw him getting on the bus.

By the time I managed to get to the bus doors, the driver shut them on me, saying this bus is full. The woman in the purple jacket was on board and seated. I backed out of the door well, and as I did, another five people pressed past me and on board.

That's when I lost it and said to the bus driver "If the bus was full, where did those five people fit?" Well, he asked, where are you going? To the hospital, I replied. OK, he said, where do you think you can ride?

As we have this conversation, another two people push past and cram their fat asses into the door well. The driver closed the doors and the bus left.

Now, I ask you, how did I end up missing the bus, when I was at the front of the line for so long? Because I refused to push, shove, cut, or otherwise exhibit rude behavior to my fellow humans during an inconvenience such as a transit failure.

I crossed the highway and flagged a cab. I also shared the cab with two other employees. We had a nice ride, thanks.

*read an earlier rant about the nano-second people.